Page 80 - ITU Kaleidoscope 2016

2016 ITU Kaleidoscope Academic Conference

5. PILOT STUDY questionnaire developed in collaboration with experts in
Psychopedagogy from University of Bucharest, a partner of
The Research Group NQaS (Networking Quality and NEWTON project.
Security) of the University of the Basque Country in Spain Moreover, in order to measure the influence of TEL on
has a large experience in the definition and validation of increasing the learning outcome, the knowledge of the
QoS/QoE standards [46-55]. They have also participated as students related to the material presented in the 2-hours
rapporteurs and editors in the ITU-T Study Group 11 being course will be assessed via a test. The aim is to compare the
one of the first academia members to be actively involved students’ performance in the questions related to the course
in the standardization process developed in this SDO. In aspects that were not presented employing TEL elements
fact, recently, it has been approved one of the most against the students’ performance in the questions related to
innovative Recommendations in the area of Internet the course aspects that were presented employing TEL. A
QoE/QoS measurements that was, indeed, edited by two pre-test will be also given to the students to make sure that
members of this university [56]. the results analysis is not influenced by pre-existent
For that reason, one of the first pilot studies that aims to knowledge.
bring advances in both NEWTON project in general and As mentioned before, the participants to the study will be
the research on the learner experience in TEL environments master students attending their usual course that this time
in particular, will be developed through the cooperation of will be delivered employing the aforementioned technology
this research group with DCU (one of the partners of the advances.
NEWTON project).The proposed study targets the students The specific part of the course syllabus that will be carried
of the second year of the official Master in out with the proposed TEL framework will focus on
Telecommunication Engineering, attending the network performance metrics, quality of service, QoE and
“Performance on Telecommunications Networks” course. quality of perception concepts.
This course is offered in the first semester of the year so it Parts of the course will be delivered using multimedia
is intended that the pilot testing will be carried out adaptive techniques. Short videos related to different
sometime in November 2106, when some of the devices network performance metrics will be delivered to the
and testing platforms of the NEWTON project will be students. Note that NEWTON platform will not be
already ready for testing. available at the time of this pilot study, and therefore the
The experience and knowledge in the telematics area of the delivery of these videos will not be done via the platform
students that will participate in this validation will also itself, but in a test-bed like manner (Figure 7).
assist to define the capabilities of NEWTON platform A network emulator will be employed to simulate different
related to one of its target: attracting students to STEM network conditions. Some of the videos will be delivered in
higher education. an adaptive manner, some in a non-adaptive manner in
The general proposal is to provide certain parts of the order for the students to be able to note the difference. All
“Performance on Telecommunications Networks” syllabus these aspects will be captured in the questionnaire.
using both next generation TEL and traditional learning and Mulsemedia examples will be delivered as support for a
analyze how the students learning experience is enhanced better understanding of some of the taught concepts. In this
by TEL strategies. particular case, mulsemedia will not be used to deliver the
The pilot will focus on two main innovative technologies de-facto content of the course. Students will get to
that are brought by NEWTON project in the general experience mulsemedia on short movies for a better
context of learning: adaptive multimedia and mulsemedia understanding of the quality of perception metric. As
content delivery. depicted in Figure 8, different devices will be used to
The main goals of the study are to measure the following deliver mulsemedia content (e.g. air device – fan, haptic
aspects that are highly important in the context of device – haptic vest, etc.).
NEWTON project in particular and any TEL-related Same pilot is planned to be carried also in Dublin, Ireland
project in general: in Dublin City University (DCU), at the master level as
- The influence of the employed innovative well. Results obtained in both institutions, UPV/EHU and
technologies on increasing learner QoE DCU, will be analyzed and compared.
- The influence of the employed innovative
technologies on improving learning process
- The influence of the employed innovative
technologies on increasing learning outcome.

In this purpose the proposed framework (Figure 6) will be
used. In addition, in measuring the influence of TEL on
improving the learning process we will also employ a Figure 7. Delivery of course content using adaptive
multimedia

– 62 –